204 LICHENS. 



 



no more gathered for the market. In former clays it 

 used to yield the best scarlet dye ; and, as such, it was 

 plentifully employed in the manufacture of the cloaks 

 then so much in vogue. It did good service to the 

 country at the end of the last century ; for when the 

 French troops landed at Fishguard, and were opposed 

 only by a very inadequate body of yeomanry, the sight 

 < )f a number of Welsh women in the distance, mounted 

 on hill ponies, and wearing their high hats and Cudbear- 

 dyed cloaks, bound, I suppose, for the nearest market, 

 struck them with panic, because they mistook the cloaks 

 for the " red coats of the regulars," and they surrendered 

 themselves .to Lord Cawdor and his yeomanry without 

 striking a blow. The Cudbear grows abundantly on 

 these Swaledale rocks, its ochre shields crowding so close 

 together that they shoulder each other out of shape ; 

 those that have the good fortune to get more elbow-room 

 grow as large as a threepenny piece. The crust is of a 

 whitish gray, like that of the Crab's-eye lichen. 



The black-shielded Lecanora is there too (L. atra). Its 

 crust is whitish, rugged, and cracked, its shields oval, but 

 often squeezed, so as to be quite narrow, the disks full 

 black. For our specimens of the Red-spangled Lecanora 

 (L. ventosa) we are indebted to the rocks about Arthur's 

 Seat, It is a handsome species, with ochre crust and dark 

 red shields. It yields a purple dye : indeed, many 

 lichens of this family yield dyes of purple, red, or brown ; 

 and Hellot gives a simple recipe for detecting the colour- 

 ing principle : — " Put half an ounce of the plant into a 

 glass, and moisten it with equal parts of lime, water, and 

 spirits of ^sal-ammoniac ; tie a wet bladder close over the 



